涉外定牌加工中的商标权问题

Issues Concerning Trademark Right in OEM

涉外定牌加工中的法律适用问题,是知识产权法学界和实务界研究的难点和前沿问题。厘清这个问题的关键在于明确"商标性使用"和"混淆可能性"的立法本意。本文在分析目前主要司法案例,并比较欧洲及美国商标制度中相关规定和概念的基础上,认为:除合理使用等特别情形外,凡是有可能识别商品来源的商标使用行为,就是商标法意义上的商标性使用。如果对物理贴附行为不认定属于商标性使用,就会导致商标法体系内"商标使用"的不同含义。如此,既不利于逻辑自洽和体系衔接,也会造成行政保护与民事保护标准的不统一,更不符合新时期我国经济发展转型的需要。在涉外定牌加工的商标权问题中,对于相同商品使用相同商标的情形,无须考虑混淆可能性,可以径行认定侵权。对于类似商品及近似商标的情形,需要考虑混淆可能性,此时要注意,即便最终销售市场不在国内,相关公众也并不只限于实际购买者,还包括潜在购买者,以及与产品营销有密切关系的其他经营者(物流、报关以及投资人)。对于商标权的保护,应当脱离政策影响,回到商标法的规则和原理框架范围内,避免商标使用在商标法体系内的冲突和异化,更好地发挥商标法的作用。

Issues on the application of Trademark law in OEM are the focus and frontier issue of intellectual property law and practice research.The key to clarify this issue is to clarify the legislative intention of"trademark use"and"likelihood of confusion".Based on the analysis of the current cases and the comparison of the relevant provisions and concepts in the trademark system in Europe and the United States,it is concluded that,except for special provisions such as fair use and non-commercial use,any behavior that can identify the source of commodities could consist the use of trademarks in the general sense of trademark law.If the physical attachment of trademark is not recognized as trademark use,it will lead to different meanings of"trademark use"in the trademark law system,which is not conducive to logic self-consistency and system cohesion,and will cause the inconsistency of administrative protection and civil protection standards as well as not meet the needs of China’s economic development transformation in the new era.In the issue of OEM trademark,there is no need to consider the likelihood of confusion in the case of using the same trademark on the same good/services,there is no need to consider the likelihood of confusion.As to similar good/services at similar mark,it is necessary to determine the likelihood of confusion.At this point,what need to note is that even if the products are not sale in the domestic sales market,the relevant public include potential buyers as well as the actual buyers,and other operators having close relationship with product marketing(logistics,customs declaration,and investors).In short,the protection of trademark rights should be separated from the influence of policies and returned to the rules and principles of the trademark law,so as to avoid the conflict and alienation of trademark use in the trademark law system and give better play to the role of trademark law.